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Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

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Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#541

Post by [deleted] »

ayngg wrote: post #159
bransonf wrote: post #94

It’s a simple equation: So long as there is more money in mining BTC than there is cost in energy to mine it, mining will proceed. No entity in the world can control the price of crypto. But, we can and already do regulate energy production. I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere. Seriously, what are the…

To me it seems like Bitcoin (and other pow cryptocurrencies) are almost like the climate change scapegoat for a number of social and economic issues that have seemingly come to a head recently to facilitate their rise. People mine because it is expensive, it isn't the other way around, so the real questions we should be asking in good faith are things like "Why it is profitable in the first place?" and I think it is…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#542

Post by camgunz »

dang wrote: post #109
camgunz wrote: post #13

Every time I'm like "BTC is roasting the planet" people come out of the woodwork to remind me about renewable energy. Funny I don't see any of them here....

Please don't post supercilious dismissals, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Especially not as a shallow one-liner. It leads to shallow, uninteresting discussion and we're hoping for better than that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry about that! I'll do better :)

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#543

Post by roenxi »

Webox wrote: post #443
roenxi wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a really easy solution for this disaster - a trusted party could run a big relational database that was basically a non-inflating currency and really cheap to run. Except that isn't going to work, because governments are untrustworthy and as history shows will sooner rather than later debase their currency. All people are looking for here is a safe way to store value over time. If governments would let peopl…

I don't get your argument. Bitcoin is very very volatile and just because it went up the last x years, doesn't make it stable or trustworthy. My money in my bank is very safe and it doesn't cost me anything. The inflation itself is a systematic thing and should affect bitcoin equaly. When corona came, i was looking at the stock market and was surprised how many people left it. It doesn't make much sense to distrist t…

> My money in my bank is very safe and it doesn't cost me anything.

Your money is safe, your wealth is not. Taking the US as a reference, it is official government policy that if you store your wealth as money then it has a half life of 35 years.

> Bitcoin is very very volatile and just because it went up the last x years, doesn't make it stable or trustworthy.

I was sneaky in my wording - I'm a gold bug and think Bitcoin is worthless. Nevertheless, a rational person who was interested in bitcoin would probably note that whatever its bad points it is simply not subject to the sort of technical intervention that makes fiat untrustworthy.

Also, using gold as a reference, the unofficial policy half life looks more like 12 years. Using the M2, maybe 14 years.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#544

Post by wdn »

bransonf wrote: post #94

It’s a simple equation: So long as there is more money in mining BTC than there is cost in energy to mine it, mining will proceed. No entity in the world can control the price of crypto. But, we can and already do regulate energy production. I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere. Seriously, what are the…

We don't need a carbon tax.

What we need a get rid of all the print and spend politicians. The reason for the raise of bitcoin is a direct response to the trillions and trillions of dollars just printed out of thin air.

It is insane how much grocery cost nowadays. I was at the supermarket last week and was looking at lobster, I thought it was listed for $6.99/lb for those 1 to 1.25 lb size, but when I got closed, it was $16.99/lb. It is crazy. Blue Crab at $5/each.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#545

Post by totony »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #510
totony wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon tax is not about making something illegal. You playing a game 4h/day is nothing compared to 1000 gpus mining 24/7. One is pennies in tax and the other would (presumably) be way more significant.

> You playing a game 4h/day is nothing compared to 1000 gpus mining 24/7. Red Dead Redemption 2 sold 34 million, the game takes well over 100 hours to complete and runs GPUs to their limits. I think even if just half or a quarter of the players completed it that's significant next to mining and needs to be looked at with the same level as criticism.

That's not the point. The person playing the game would pay 10cents in carbon tax or something, which is insignificant to them. The person with a bitcoin farm would have to pay much much more, which is a disincentive.

And even if it is worth it to them to run with the carbon tax (as it would be for a gamer), the money that's being taxed can be used to offset their emission. That's the point of a carbon tax; pollute if you want BUT you pay for what you generate as pollution so that we can offset it in some other way.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#546

Post by totony »

EdwinLarkin wrote: post #358
totony wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon tax is not about making something illegal. You playing a game 4h/day is nothing compared to 1000 gpus mining 24/7. One is pennies in tax and the other would (presumably) be way more significant.

Even today carbon taxes are the stupidest idea people from rich nations thought about. Around 5BN from the developing world will laugh at this proposal. They will not be able to trade with you? Oh well they might trade among themselves and dont have to face competition from rich countries. I call this win win.

Do you honestly believe (let's say) the USA cutting all economic ties/imposing tariffs is insignificant?

Of course they can trade with the others who don't care about pollution. That doesn't mean the costs of a carbon tax don't outweigh the benefits of having economic ties with the countries that have that tax.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#547

Post by dang »

camgunz wrote: post #542
dang wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post supercilious dismissals, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Especially not as a shallow one-liner. It leads to shallow, uninteresting discussion and we're hoping for better than that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry about that! I'll do better :)

Appreciated!

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#548

Post by pcthrowaway »

lamontcg wrote: post #520
pcthrowaway wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're comparing this with nonrenewable energy! I'll state for the third time that I'm in favour of replacing non-renewable energy with renewable energy. What I'm saying is that it's still wasteful, and not cost-free if we're producing insane amounts of energy that don't need to be produced in the first place.

Your argument is a bit of a mess though. It is easier to argue that the bitcoin energy expenditure should be turned off. That would lower energy demand and prices and we're now in a regime where that makes running carbon-burning plants less attractive and they'd get turned off while any renewables that bitcoin is using would become available. And if I could snap my fingers and replace all the GHGs with wind I would a…

> It is easier to argue that the bitcoin energy expenditure should be turned off

This is what I've been arguing the whole time. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to replace more impactful energy production with sustainable energy production. I'm saying we shouldn't be using energy on something as wasteful as proof-of-work, when we can have blockchain technology without it, because that energy production doesn't come without impact no matter how much the proof-of-work supporters and beneficiaries try to greenwash it.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#549

Post by hedora »

bransonf wrote: post #94

It’s a simple equation: So long as there is more money in mining BTC than there is cost in energy to mine it, mining will proceed. No entity in the world can control the price of crypto. But, we can and already do regulate energy production. I think we need a carbon tax, that is specifically a financial disincentive towards any means of energy production that directly pollutes the atmosphere. Seriously, what are the…

The carbon tax should be earmarked to be spent capturing carbon, and cover about 2x the emissions of the power generated.

A handy rule of thumb, for gasoline: A gallon of gas produces 20lbs of CO2. A ton is 2000lbs. If a carbon capture technology costs X dollars per ton, it costs X cents per gallon.

Most carbon capture technologies will be in the $15 to $85 per ton range when they scale.

Therefore, a $1/gallon gasoline tax (and equivalent for coal, etc), would be enough to solve climate change.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#550

Post by pontifier »

px43 wrote: post #148
pontifier wrote: post #25

Do any bitcoin miners in this thread want to invest in my fusion reactor prototype?

Yo right here. What you got :-) Remember, fusors are losers. I wanna see lattice fusion with metallic hydrogen cores embedded in 3D printed diamonds or I'm out.

It's a completely new concept. I've got some stuff up at http://www.DDproFusion.com

I've got a bit of a simulation, not quite totally ready yet at http://www.ddprofusion.com/simulation/index.html that shows a bit of the physics.

It's totally new, so no prototype exists and it may not even really work, but I'm trying to raise funds right now... I'm trying to sell some stock and I've got some other things I'm doing to raise money to really give it a good try.

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